The "senior managers" are seriously retarded. Looks like Canadia has been infected with teh stoopid.

Hey, if not reading is good enough for ex-Presidents and ex-Governors, it should be good enough for you poutine-snarfing commie-healthcare hockey goons.

dahmers love zombie: if not reading is good enough for ex-Presidents and ex-Governors

Sadly there are a lot of people who do believe that reading is a bad thing.

So Canada is running a $172 billion deficit over the next six years by throwing money at virtually every drooling lobbyist, but they can't spare a couple of million for the the national library.

This sounds like a certain conservative government has other priorities.

Don't worry, Canadians!

The Security and Prosperity Partnership Of North America Link (new window) is going to render your national identity obsolete, as it will for all nations in North America.

No national identity, no reason to wa$te preciou$ re$ource$ on stupid stuff like national libraries.

The SPP, aka the North American Union, will become your new national identity. Books about Canada and Canadian culture will become irrelevant, so why waste any more money on them now?

You all just don't get it, do you?

I really want to slap all these folks who say we should put everything compressed on BluRay discs and save all that library space.

Yes, because there is guaranteed to be no apocalypse, and since there will always be electricity and we'll always have the encryption keys to the disc format, we can always access all that information? Right?

Books are great because they're human readable in their natural form, even if someday we'll need to translate them into a new language. What we aught to be making advances in are the materials books are created with. Say, print them on some kind of material besides paper which will last for, I dunno, a few hundred thousand years. Just a thought.

I have a feeling my local library quit spending its budget on books. They shut the thing down, moved it into a newly constructed building two blocks north, and used some hippie design where all I can find are Spanish books and all the signs are two inches high.

Canada has problems? I thought it was all gay marriage and bagged milk up there!

/the more you know..

RON PAUL 2012.

Libertarians will prevail!

Winktologist: I really want to slap all these folks who say we should put everything compressed on BluRay discs and save all that library space.

Yes, because there is guaranteed to be no apocalypse, and since there will always be electricity and we'll always have the encryption keys to the disc format, we can always access all that information? Right?

Books are great because they're human readable in their natural form, even if someday we'll need to translate them into a new language. What we aught to be making advances in are the materials books are created with. Say, print them on some kind of material besides paper which will last for, I dunno, a few hundred thousand years. Just a thought.

While I think keeping physical books are important, I find it just as likely for us to completely forget the English language and be utterly unable to retrieve it as it is to magically lose all technology one day.

Fark Me To Tears: Don't worry, Canadians!

The Security and Prosperity Partnership Of North America Link (new window) is going to render your national identity obsolete, as it will for all nations in North America.

No national identity, no reason to wa$te preciou$ re$ource$ on stupid stuff like national libraries.

The SPP, aka the North American Union, will become your new national identity. Books about Canada and Canadian culture will become irrelevant, so why waste any more money on them now?

You all just don't get it, do you?

You might need to loosen your tin foil hat a bit, you're not getting enough blood to the brain.

/just fyi

Winktologist: What we aught to be making advances in are the materials books are created with. Say, print them on some kind of material besides paper which will last for, I dunno, a few hundred thousand years. Just a thought.

Winktologist: I really want to slap all these folks who say we should put everything compressed on BluRay discs and save all that library space.

Yes, because there is guaranteed to be no apocalypse, and since there will always be electricity and we'll always have the encryption keys to the disc format, we can always access all that information? Right?

In the event of an apocalyspe and permanent loss of the electrical grid, my first inpulse will be to walk over to the Lake Arlington branch of the local library and check out a copy of Amelia Bedilia.

Winktologist: I really want to slap all these folks who say we should put everything compressed on BluRay discs and save all that library space.

Yes, because there is guaranteed to be no apocalypse, and since there will always be electricity and we'll always have the encryption keys to the disc format, we can always access all that information? Right?

Books are great because they're human readable in their natural form, even if someday we'll need to translate them into a new language. What we aught to be making advances in are the materials books are created with. Say, print them on some kind of material besides paper which will last for, I dunno, a few hundred thousand years. Just a thought.

There will be a short delay until a new supply of lemon-soaked paper napkins arrives.

The UK has a law that the six named "deposit libraries" are entitled to a free copy of anything published in the UK.

/ Perhaps nothing of worth is published in Canada, so they need to import everything.

Caulfield: Winktologist: I really want to slap all these folks who say we should put everything compressed on BluRay discs and save all that library space.

Yes, because there is guaranteed to be no apocalypse, and since there will always be electricity and we'll always have the encryption keys to the disc format, we can always access all that information? Right?

In the event of an apocalyspe and permanent loss of the electrical grid, my first inpulse will be to walk over to the Lake Arlington branch of the local library and check out a copy of Amelia Bedilia.

But most library systems are now computerized

And you KNOW that some bureaucrat will not allow you to check out a book if the computers are down, even permanently

You just can't stop preserving history


Disagrees.

/hotlinked

Doesn't feel like paper...



/has a bet with Joe

eddyatwork:
Sadly there are a lot of people who do believe that reading is a bad thing.

*cough*



*cough*

Barakku: Winktologist: I really want to slap all these folks who say we should put everything compressed on BluRay discs and save all that library space.

Yes, because there is guaranteed to be no apocalypse, and since there will always be electricity and we'll always have the encryption keys to the disc format, we can always access all that information? Right?

Books are great because they're human readable in their natural form, even if someday we'll need to translate them into a new language. What we aught to be making advances in are the materials books are created with. Say, print them on some kind of material besides paper which will last for, I dunno, a few hundred thousand years. Just a thought.

While I think keeping physical books are important, I find it just as likely for us to completely forget the English language and be utterly unable to retrieve it as it is to magically lose all technology one day.

I'll do you one better. Once thought to be the best possible answer to compact data storage for archival materials, it now turns out that CD technology has a lifespan of about 30 years before data corruption becomes a serious problem. Lots of libraries and archives are realizing, with profound regret, that the microfische and microfilm records they abandoned wholesale over the last decade or two, when properly stored, would have been much better for long-term records storage. Add that to the ongoing advance in how data is read and stored (anybody out there got a 5 1/4" floppy drive? Heck, how many of you still have a 3 1/2" disk drive?) and the idea that we will be able to read the info these disks a generation from now, perfectly preserved on not, is almost absurd.

/Museum guy. I know stuff.
//Article is scary as hell. Ask the librarians in Baghdad, Rome and Alexandria if they just 'fill in the blanks' in the collection later.

eggrolls: Add that to the ongoing advance in how data is read and stored (anybody out there got a 5 1/4" floppy drive? Heck, how many of you still have a 3 1/2" disk drive?) and the idea that we will be able to read the info these disks a generation from now, perfectly preserved on not, is almost absurd.

I've actually been puzzling over the same problem. My parents have a broken Apple IIe (worked fine until some large rodent knocked it off its stand in their garage a few years ago), and no way to transfer the data from it to a newer computer. The only way I can see to do it would be to find an older Macintosh and a 5 1/4" floppy drive that works with it (I seem to recall that early Macs could read disks formatted for the Apple II), copy all of the data from the ProDOS-formatted 5 1/4" floppies onto FAT-formatted 3 1/2" floppies (or even HFS-formatted floppies if the Mac is too old to support PC floppies, but not those weird 800k floppies), and then copy the data from the 3 1/2" floppies onto their current Kubuntu system (which DOES have a 3 1/2" floppy drive). Of course, even if I get to that point, I'd still need to figure out how to translate the data into formats understandable by modern computers (anyone remember the original AppleWorks?).

Transferring the data is not technically challenging, but finding all of the necessary equipment is insanely hard these days. And unless I can figure out how to fix that Apple IIe and use its native software to translate the data into a platform-agnostic format (I think most of it would translate to plain ASCII text just fine), I can't yet see how that would work.

It's okay. I'll be happy to take many of the books that all these libraries are passing up. I'll make room one way or another. Shoot, I'll even be happy to provide protective archival materials at my own expense and catalog them (per Dewey) and everything.

I'm particularly fond of first editions of 19th & 20th century Western Literature.

/Just trying to be helpful.
//Really. Loves me some books. Lots of 'em.

Books? We don't need no steenking books. We have the interwebs!

And the Ottawa Bluesfest got 1.5 million in federal funding to throw free shows in addition to the existing shows.

Grinds my gears.

/why yes, I will be attending anyways

eddyatwork: dahmers love zombie: if not reading is good enough for ex-Presidents and ex-Governors

Sadly there are a lot of people who do believe that reading is a bad thing.

Well... not necessarily bad... but libraries and reading are seen as entertainment. As such, they're an expendable mark on the budget. Few people consider (or care, really) about the underclass that rely on libraries for research or internet access because most of us have internet access at home and the idea of reading a 6-year-old encyclopedia for information seems archaic. It's a place to get new releases without paying for it and to rent cheap DVDs.

Ohio is one of the few states that actually fund their library system, and it is consistently has locations all over the state popping up in the "country's best..." Ohio is also a couple billion in the shiatter. Libraries are an easy target, and are going to get cut hard.

A whole buncha' libraries all over Ohio already slashed their purchasing budget to next to nothing thanks to a 20% reduction earlier in the year. (Just due to low state revenue.) Strickland has another 30-50% on the table, among another 2B+ in cuts elsewhere in some desperate attempt not to go broke.

Whole lotta' Ohio libraries are 100% funded by state money. And a whole lotta' those are going to close. ('course, they're not alone...)

So... yeah... huge book sales should be comin' up in the next few months. Bring a truck.



Caulfield: In the event of an apocalyspe and permanent loss of the electrical grid, my first inpulse will be to walk over to the Lake Arlington branch of the local library and check out a copy of Amelia Bedilia.

:D

opiumpoopy: The UK has a law that the six named "deposit libraries" are entitled to a free copy of anything published in the UK..

Naw, we have the same law here. The article is just talking about the budget to buy books that are published outside of Canada. Not everything a la Canada is published in Canada, eh?

/takes off librarian glasses and returns to her book.

Boooks? I have heard that word somewhere. I guess I should google it from my basement.

baggier: Boooks? I have heard that word somewhere. I guess I should google it from my basement.

Are boooks ghost-written books? I'm not familiar with that term.

I recently visited the Museum of Canadian Civilization and saw a guy in a beaver costume reading to kids in French. I nominate this as a budget cut.

Also saw him in costume on a smoke break.

margarito bandito: I recently visited the Museum of Canadian Civilization and saw a guy in a beaver costume reading to kids in French. I nominate this as a budget cut.

Because he was reading in French, or because he was wearing a beaver costume?

anfrind: eggrolls: Add that to the ongoing advance in how data is read and stored (anybody out there got a 5 1/4" floppy drive? Heck, how many of you still have a 3 1/2" disk drive?) and the idea that we will be able to read the info these disks a generation from now, perfectly preserved on not, is almost absurd.

I've actually been puzzling over the same problem. My parents have a broken Apple IIe (worked fine until some large rodent knocked it off its stand in their garage a few years ago), and no way to transfer the data from it to a newer computer. The only way I can see to do it would be to find an older Macintosh and a 5 1/4" floppy drive that works with it (I seem to recall that early Macs could read disks formatted for the Apple II), copy all of the data from the ProDOS-formatted 5 1/4" floppies onto FAT-formatted 3 1/2" floppies (or even HFS-formatted floppies if the Mac is too old to support PC floppies, but not those weird 800k floppies), and then copy the data from the 3 1/2" floppies onto their current Kubuntu system (which DOES have a 3 1/2" floppy drive). Of course, even if I get to that point, I'd still need to figure out how to translate the data into formats understandable by modern computers (anyone remember the original AppleWorks?).

Transferring the data is not technically challenging, but finding all of the necessary equipment is insanely hard these days. And unless I can figure out how to fix that Apple IIe and use its native software to translate the data into a platform-agnostic format (I think most of it would translate to plain ASCII text just fine), I can't yet see how that would work.

This is what you are going to want to do:

1. First, get the original system working, by hook or by crook. This means getting it up and running, and finding floppy drives; fortunately for you, you are dealing with an Apple IIe, of which there are tons of people out there who have experience and parts.

2. Join an Apple IIe user mailing list or two; get involved in the community: People still make new hardware for most of the popular old 8-bit machines out there (indeed, one can still buy new hardware for an Altair; it isn't cheap). Get to know these people; you will probably run into some of the "old dudes" from the past who programmed games and such (and they may be very old today!). Talk to the people on the list, ask for help (some may be willing to send you parts/hardware for only the cost of shipping!).

3. Find or buy yourself (not cheap, again) a "CatWeasel" - this is a card for a PC developed by some guys in Germany that will allow you to hook up old drives to your PC, so you can get the data transferred.

4. Alternatively, build a null-modem cable to go between your PC and the Apple IIe (via the serial port/card), and fire up some comm software on each end, then X/Y/Z modem it across.

5. You may not know this, but the Apple IIe was one of the few 8-bit machines to have had real ethernet cards made for them (although they may have used AUI/10Base2 - can't remember - there may have been a 10BaseT card made).

6. Since you mentioned *nix, set up a copy of MESS with the Apple IIe emulator (you will probably need copies of the ROMs - very easy to find; indeed, you could always retype the ROM listing from the manual if you were really desperate, at least I think it was a complete listing) - once you have it set up and running, learn how to use it to read floppy images and run them; it shouldn't be too difficult.

7. Also, look into acquiring an Apple IIgs system - being slightly newer, plus you have built in 80 column (and hi-res of course), the extra memory, and there were 3.5 inch floppy drives available for them.

My only experience in this matter has been with my TRS-80 Color Computer collection (from my youth mostly); I set up a DOS PC with a 5.25 floppy drive, and transferred the data using various utilities from 5.25 to floppy images onto the internal hard drive. I had a variety of emulators available on the system to test the disk images after I transferred them. Once I had everything transferred, I then disconnected the hard drive, connected it to my linux box, mounted the drive, and copied the data.

If I was going to do that large of a project again, I might have went a different route: one supplier of new CoCo hardware (Cloud-9) has an adaptor to allow you to use a CF card as storage - that might have been an easier way to do things (maybe).

Something else to keep in mind: You will NOT get 100% of your data back; if you are lucky (and the disks have been stored carefully) you may get 90%, maybe a little more, but 100% is asking a lot for a bunch of old floppies. Apply write-protection to EVERY disk you are converting as a precaution, and keep reads/spinups to an absolute minimum. Find a floppy head cleaning system (difficult to find today for 5.25 drives), or learn how to clean the heads manually. You may also have to learn how to "time" the floppy drive motors, if age/storage has caused them to run slow or fast. You may need to clean the drive (rails, etc) thoroughly before using it. You may only get one chance with a floppy; it may be best to use a new floppy to transfer the data (ie, copy the floppy on the real system to a new "backup", then perform all of your transfer magic using that new disk). New-old stock is very difficult to find; I know of one vendor of 5.25 floppies:

http://www.athana.com/html/diskette.html

Good luck!

pffft! Those people just care about guns and dope.

In terms of long-term data storage, I think the best way would be a google-style ecosystem of servers with plenty of redundancy and off-site backups of critical information. If the server with data on it goes down, there's 2 more with info mirrored on it not inc. "real" backups.